In Search Of Paradise

In this lavishly illustrated book, author GRAEME LAY presents the lives of twenty-three of the finest artists and writers to have been inspired by the South Pacific, and a rich selection of their works. IN SEARCH OF PARADISE is a compilation of memorable visual and literary journeys, covering two hundred years of European contact with the South Pacific islands and the people who inhabited them at a unique period in the region's history.

Among the art and writing included are:

* The candid chronicles of Joseph Banks
* Louis-Antoine de Bougainville's discovery of Tahitian free love
* Herman Melville's very first fiction
* Robert Louis Stevenson's life and death in Samoa
* The radiant paintings of Paul Gauguin
* Gottfried Lindauer's depiction of a presumed-dying Maori race
* The love affair of Rupert Brooke's life
* The inspiration for Somerset Maugham's best-known short story
* The remarkable literary partnership of Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall